GERRARD and Lampard. For a generation they were the double act that didn't click, presenting a conundrum to four England managers.

Now, as both approach the ends of their careers, their contrasting stories combine to illustrate what it means to be a professional footballer – and what it is to be a fan committed to one club.

Steven Gerrard, made on Merseyside, has written an indelible chapter of the Liverpool legend.

But although the club yesterday revealed they have offered him a new contract, they are nursing him through the season, picking and choosing those games he starts and those he starts by watching. So he must decide whether to stay or go.

Lampard had a similar choice made for him.

Without a shred of sentimentality, Chelsea, for whom he had set appearance and scoring records, released him at the end of last season.

He headed for to America. As his uncle, Harry Redknapp, said yesterday on talkSPORT: "That seemed like a nice life, you know, two years in New York."

But New York City FC belong to Manchester City's owners, and a loan deal brought Lampard back to the Premier League.

At the weekend, Gerrard was only a substitute as Liverpool edged to a home win over Stoke. He came on for the final 15 minutes but, by then, had featured in countless photographs looking forlorn on the bench.

Lampard was a sub too, and played only ten minutes longer for Manchester City.

But he scored one goal and played a significant part in another as City beat Southampton and narrowed the gap on leaders Chelsea.

So, as Gerrard decides whether to eke out the dregs of his Liverpool days while becoming more peripheral, Lampard might extend his City stay – and play a major part in their attempt to stop his former club winning the title.

I was in the crowd on another occasion when Gerrard was a substitute: in Belo Horizonte at England's final game of a crushingly disappointing World Cup campaign.

REUTERS

Frank Lampard is enjoying a new lease of life at Manchester City

We supporters gave him, Lampard and the rest, an ovation at the finish of the goal-less game against Costa Rica. We'd seen how much the players were hurting and we understood that, for many of them, it was farewell.

Gerrard and Lampard each earned more than 100 caps, yet Sven Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson all failed to harness their talents in tandem.

That exemplified the England problem. We've had great players, but not a good team.

Now Gerrard's personal dilemma about what to do about Liverpool's offer of a contract, and Lampard's new lease of life away from Chelsea, get to the very kernel of what it means to be a professional footballer and what it means to be a supporter.

People invest so much emotional capital in being fans that it feels like a betrayal when players treat their job as...well, as a job.

Gerrard, the inspirational hero of the "miracle of Istanbul", was hugely effective last season. He sat deep and sprayed passes like a quarter-back.

And such is his status that he was forgiven instantly when his slip helped Chelsea to a decisive victory.

But this season there is nobody in the Liverpool team with pace to compensate for Gerrard's dwindling physicality.

He is still one of the best passers in the game, but there has been no Suarez or Sturridge making rapid runs ahead of him to prompt his passes and profit from them.

Yet if Gerrard decides to go, he will not be short of suitors. And if he then prospers elsewhere, as Lampard has, fans will not forgive manager Brendan Rodgers for allowing one of the greatest Liverpool players of all time to leave.

So here is the final twist to the intertwined story of Gerrard and Lampard: Frank's City adventure is what makes it essential for Liverpool to keep Stevie.

Through the roof

THEY'VE started erecting the Olympic Stadium's new roof. The cost has gone up, So the price for building the stadium (not including buying the land, moving businesses out and so on) now stands at £616m.

West Ham's contribution? £15m. You've paid the rest. The legacy of the London Olympics is a cut-price stadium for a football club, who have flogged their old ground to developers.

They haven't disclosed the price, but value the ground at £71m in their accounts.

Don't blame them for hammering out such a fabulous deal, which will stop the stadium from being a white elephant.

The scandal is that Games organisers built it without a plan for what would happen after six weeks of Olympic and Paralympic events, hence the massive rebuild.